Manchester take one.

Sunday I was in Manchester, which is a city I love. They have streetcars! Okay, they call them trams, but hey, it looks like a streetcar to me. I took one out to Salford Quays, which are a out of the city centre,


The Quay's are kind of like Harbourfront, only minus any noise or traffic. There were lots of new condo buildings, some like these ones, and more that were walk ups. It freaked me out how little noise there was. I think water, I think people, boats, coming and going. Here there were just tourists walking about, and there weren't even that many of them.


Tourists? What is there to do out in the middle of nowhere you ask? Lots actually, makes for a well spent afternoon. I first went to the Lowry Museum. This modern building was designed to look like a boat, which is appropriate since it's on a river.


I saw an exhibit of paintings, drawings and prints by an artist named Laura Knight. The focus of the show was the work she had done based on the Russian Ballet and theatre, mostly Shakespeare. It was so interesting to see the way she captured all the movement, sometimes in just a few lines.


In addition to art, the museum holds a theatre that shows plays, ballets and opera.


Next stop was the Imperial War Museum North, which is all about .... well, war. Once again it has a very modern building, this time representing the continents of the earth.



The exhibition rooms are very interesting. It's one big main space broken up into smaller stations around the room. There was a real focus on the individual within war. There were the personal stories of soldiers, nurses, POW, children, women at home. Everyone had a say. There were a lot of person artifacts to go along with the stories as well.


I could have spent a lot of time there, just wandering about and reading. However, the one down side about the Museum is that it has very low lighting. Very very low. Every half hour they play one of three multimedia movies, which are very loud. With gun shot and bomb sound effects. The combination meant that I got a headache, so I called it quits once the second movie started.


I am not actually as upset as I look in this picture, I was just concentrating really hard to take a picture of myself. It's more of a Here I Am picture than anything. That's what happens when you travel by yourself, no one to take pictures of you.



I should also mention that this was the day that in a mess of groceries I left my wallet on the bus in Manchester. Through the intrepid skills of the bus company, it was found. Kudos also to my dad who canceled my credit card within seconds of finding out.